About: Fort Townshend (St John's)

Fort Townshend is an archaeological site in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador that was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1951. The original military fort was built, as the headquarters of the British garrison, between 1775-1779, to secure St John's from attacks, from the French, as well as from American privateers, and it was abandoned in 1871. The great star-shaped citadel was one of the largest British fortifications in North America at the time. The Rooms which houses the Art Gallery, the Provincial Archives and the Provincial Museum, of Newfoundland and Labrador now stands on this site. During the planning and construction of the building much opposition was raised by archaeologists and historians.